Getting To Know (a team that is about to ruthlessly avenge an embarrassing loss): Georgia Tech

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But first a thought on:

Tim Ambrose, Heart of a Champion: If one player on this team has reason to quit on his team, it’s Tim Ambrose. He is the team’s returning (and current) leading scorer, along just about every other major statistical category, and he has been stripped of team captain, demoted to the bench and disparaged on the fan boards. Will Brown continues to praise other, younger players who have to date produced nothing. Yet Ambrose continues to go out there and play his heart out. He has again and again been forced to be a one man show on offense and he’s shouldered that load and blame without any public complaint. Against American, he even corrected his one great flaw: 5 assists, 0 turnovers. I’m not ready to write this team off for the season in a large part of because Ambrose’s potential as a backcourt tandem with Mike Black. If Black does comes back and UAlbany turns the corner, don’t overlook how important Ambrose is to this team.

Onto Georgia Tech.

The Upset Card Has Already Been Punched: On Monday night, Georgia Tech was torched on the road by Kennesaw State, a team picked to finish fifth in the Atlantic Sun by the coaches’ poll. Kennesaw State shot well from everywhere against the GTech defense, so the optimist might try to say that their weakness has been exposed. More realistically, I expect a hungry and embarrassed GTech squad to leave everything on the floor for their home crowd.

Famous Dad: Glen Rice, Jr. is the son of, well you can put the pieces together. He’s a versatile 6’5 sophomore with some range, but he hasn’t established himself as a superstar to date. The crux of the team is Imam Shumpert, a 6’5 guard- the offensive will flow through the explosive, but inconsistent junior. Also watch for Mfon Udofia, who seems to be comfortable against teams from the Capital Region- he had 27 points and 7 boards against Siena last year.

Block Party: 6’10 red-shirt freshman Daniel Miller is trying to fill the shoes of a two first round draft picks and he’s doing in swell in at least one area: blocks. He has 9 blocks in the first two games of the year. Unfortunately for Miller, UAlbany’s game plan of never attacking the paint or feeding the post might deprive him of opportunity.

Fans Are Firing Up the Carousel: Many fans had been calling for Paul Hewitt’s head entering the season; starting off the year with an ugly win and a horrible loss has only amped up the pressure.

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Keys For Albany: Everything has already been raked over on the board, but I’ll pick out a few arguments that I think are most important.

-Tim Ambrose has to get the start. An athletic, lanky team could dismantle a Watts led backcourt before Will could even get a sub in.

-We need to get to the rim. I feel silly for misinterpreting Will Brown’s quote about Logan Aronhalt dunking on people’s head. He may have just meant if a ball boy or team manager was standing under the hoop to rebound, because Logan has not been able to get to the hoop when a defender is standing in his way. The Great Danes have shot 18 foul shots so far and 12 of those were from Black or Ambrose. Six free throws for the rest of the team for two games. It is acceptable if Logan’s shot is not always falling, but he and the rest of the team need to attack the rim and draw fouls.

-Give Derrek Tartt a run, sticking to Watts and Iati seems illogical. Also, more Blake Metcalf. Those moves in the highlight reel aren’t textbook, but you can see the defenders gravitate towards him and suddenly there are open threes to be had. Finally, Kennesaw State had success with forwards shooting from the three against GTech, I’d like to see Luke Devlin press his luck and get up a few more shots.